Co-owned buildings: who pays for what (doors, halls, cellars)

Few subjects produce as many dialogues of the deaf in French co-owned buildings as locksmithing. The base rule: common parts (hall door, intercom, badge system, communal gates — managed and paid via the syndic, shared by tantièmes) versus private parts (your lock, your cylinder — your cost). The landing door is the hybrid: its outside face and appearance belong to the building's harmony (no visible modification without approval — the basis of the authorisations sought for armoured blocks), while structure, lock, cylinder and inside face are private: no permission needed to change a cylinder or lock without touching the outside look. Hence the royal road of armouring that keeps the original panel: the authorisation question mostly evaporates.

The frequent cases

Hall door failing: report to the syndic — a hall that no longer closes at night is a building-wide security fault justifying urgent intervention. Lost badge: through the syndic's provider, billed to the resident (€15–50), like remotes for the car park. Cellar: your cellar door and lock are private; the cellar corridor and its access door are common — after a wave of cellar burglaries, voting the common access's securing is often the building's best collective euro. Mailboxes: the block is common, YOUR box's lock is private (€30–80 fitted). Rentals: tenants pay routine upkeep and lost keys; landlords pay age and obsolescence; a burgled lock goes through the tenant's mandatory home insurance; a tenant may fit their own cylinder at their cost, keeping the old one for the end of the lease — and the landlord cannot demand a copy of the new key.

Master-key systems: the best collective investment

One key per resident (flat + hall + cellar on one ring), hierarchised passes for caretaker and syndic, and no copy without the ownership card. Concrete benefits: no more forty-key caretaker rings, no more wild copies circulating from former tenants, and one cylinder to replace if a pass is lost. Voted in assembly, amortised over years of quiet — free study on request.

Summary table

Your building's règlement and your lease can refine these usual rules — they always prevail. Golden reflex before any landing-door project: written description to the syndic BEFORE works. A prior written agreement costs a letter; a restoration injunction costs the works twice. And who pays a locked-out tenant's door opening? The tenant — possibly via their policy's assistance cover: worth checking before dialling.